The Truth Behind a Rainbow Nation
国際高等学校

３年

森

川綾

子

This is a famous quote said by Nelson Mandela, during his speech whenSouth Africa had changed into a democracy. Behind this positive phrase, stilllies the sad reality of the tremendous gap between the rich and the poor. The
people of the world are turning a blind eye to the situation and that includes
our ignorance.
Good morning ladies and gentlemen. Today I would like to share how myexperience of living in South Africa brought my attention to one of the world’s
most serious issues, poverty. What is your image of poverty? Is it a homelessin this wealthy and developed country, Japan. But the extent of it cannot becompared with what you see in a third world, in my case, South Africa.
The three years that I lived in South Africa made me start to think about
poverty as I lived with the issue right at my door step. I had seen thesituation with my own eyes, leaving me with the feeling of guilt to be on thewealthy side. At school, a program called ‘Bread Buddies’ was held where we
made sandwiches once a week to take to a local primary school. Somestudents there would only have that one sandwich to eat for the day andothers would take half home for their family. I could not stand the fact thatthese little children were going through this situation. These children told methat they sometimes received money and food by knocking on the car
windows on the streets.
In most homes of the wealthy people, there would always be a maid
working for them. They would do all the washing, cleaning and sometimes all
the cooking. While they did the chores, the house owner would just lie on thesofa with a packet of chips watching television. My family also had a maid
for a short period of time, but we did not feel comfortable with exploiting thepoor in this kind of way therefore, we decided to not have one. During theshort time, I was shocked and surprised with an action that my maid took.

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person? Or, is it a skinny little child? Poverty is prominent everywhere, even

She went through each rubbish bin in our house searching for anything that
she could use to take home. As time passed, I realized that this sight wasnever rare in South Africa. Although we did not have a maid anymore, ourrubbish bin would be half the size by the time the truck came to collect it.
The poor people who walked by had taken all they needed.
These experiences made me realize how much of a peaceful and pleasantenvironment we live in, here in Japan. However, it is our ignorance andfeelings of not wanting to be involved that makes our country so peaceful.
The knowledge most people have of South Africa is appalling and I strongly
felt that from the first few words that came pouring on to me when I first
informed my friends that I was going to move to South Africa. That was: ‘isyour dad a hunter!?’ They did not even know that South Africa had a normalcity full of traffic. They would ask ridiculous questions such as ‘do you ride
高校生―Ｉ部門

camels to school!?’ with serious facial expressions. This immediately convincedme that stereotypes from the media such as the television cause many
misunderstandings. Some knowledge cannot be learned by just reading a booktherefore; you must never get taken away with the image you see just on
television or any kind of media.
There is nothing more than a priceless experience influencing how you
feel towards a serious topic like poverty. ‘A rainbow nation at peace withitself and the world’ Yes, we are very fortunate to be living in this world, but
I hope that my speech has given every individual here the chance to stepback to think about the third world. Again, I must say, please never turn ablind eye to this situation, as the power of peace lies in our hands.

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